


Maid of Steel and Roses

by LilyChenAppreciationSociety



Series: Fair Lovers Three [2]
Category: Dark Artifices Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Black Rose Triad, F/M, More Fluff, Multi, Other, Set In The Baseline 'Nighttime Acquaintances Lead To Illegal Standing Threesome' Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 20:31:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6392587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyChenAppreciationSociety/pseuds/LilyChenAppreciationSociety
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's pretty, in a human way, a Shadowhunter way, it makes sense that Mark would want her. She's terribly pretty, really. It makes sense that he might want her too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maid of Steel and Roses

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to (http://marcythewerewolf.tumblr.com/post/141869229229/)
> 
> "Would you ever write Kieran and Cristina's first kiss? Or like when he first finds himself attracted to her?  
> Anonymous  
> (Full on smooches are hard so I stuck with something simpler and weirder. Sorry this took so long! Having prompts and such is still kind of a delightful surprise.)"

Shadowhunters were born to be warriors, not as faeries were, graceful and lithe, but solid and strong. Shadowhunters stood their ground, walked as if they owned the world, and wore their humanity nearly as proudly as they wore their angelic blood.

This is our world, they declared with every gesture, every step. We are not strange and inhuman as you are, we are not old and storied. Human strength, human weakness, human prejudice, all elevated by the ichor of the heavens.

They were sturdily built, well muscled like human had to be to have strength. They were painfully mortal, living and dying in the glory of youth. They were simple and brutish and straightforward. Their every strength belied their weakness and they burned brightly enough to hurt. Kieran had never expected to find it alluring.

With Mark he had loved the Shadowhunter, yes, the pride and the strength and the bravery. But there had been something familiar there too, in his grace and beauty. It had been easy to love Mark and pretend he loved the faerie in him, for faeries were proud and strong and brave as well, if not quite in the same way.

He could not pretend with Cristina.

Mark had put on weight since he returned to his family, heavy Shadowhunter food replacing the sweet, golden fruits of faerie and the simple rations of the Hunt. Kieran still had a kiss’s worth of height on him, but Mark’s shoulders were broader now, his form more solid, as if being back among Shadowhunters had tethered him to the ground.

If Mark was made of flesh and bone now, Cristina Rosales had always been wrought of metal. She wore her birth like a mantle, as easily as she wore her angel’s sign around her neck. There was no question that she had been raised as a Shadowhunter, had been taught to fight from a young age. Her arms were strong, her motions graceful. Lean muscle rippled under smooth rune marked skin when she moved and she smelled like sweat and roses, like effort and exertion and the prettiness humans used to hide the marks of their work.

And she was beautiful as one of the fair mortal maidens of centuries past who his brothers bragged of seducing away to faerie land, where they would dance in splendor until age took it’s toll, no matter how hard they tried to stop it. Her hair was like a night of storms and her smile was charming, especially when it grew bashful.

Kieran couldn’t imagine kissing her and having it taste of anything but cold iron and heavenly fire, of angel’s blood. But he could imagine kissing her. 

She was stretched out on Mark’s bed, propped up on her elbows and talking with him, about the Blackthorn children, Mark’s family, who he loved far more than he loved Kieran. Her skirt, solid and boring and shorter than the ladies of the courts would have worn, showed off sturdy calves and rode up on one side to reveal a finger’s length of thigh.

Mark and Cristina talked and Kieran sat on the end of the bed, feet tucked under him, and watched them, not wanting to interrupt or or endanger the frail, sanguine second chance he had been given, thank, in part, to Cristina Rosales. Cristina Rosales whose hair fell loosely down her back and who seemed half made of bronze in the dim light, like a statue of some cold hearted Shadowhunter lady of old.

Well, Kieran was a prince, just as cold and mighty.

“The others miss you, Mark.” Kieran said during a lull in the conversation. “It is strange, when you were in the Hunt even those who felt fondly of you were not quick to say so, but now your absence is sorely felt.”

Mark blinked. “I am sure they only miss the chance to torment someone.” he said shortly.

“I think more of them liked you than they let on.” Kieran added. “It is simply that the bullies and mean spirits were loudest. The other day we rode and there was a space behind Gwyn, but no one moved to fill it, though we were fast in pursuit.”

“I am glad I am remembered.” Mark said in a laboured voice. “But I am not going back, no matter what.”

Kieran tried not to look too desperate to correct him, to say that he had not meant to try to bring Mark back against his will. “Of course, your freedom is rightly won and fair. But I thought all men liked to know that their absence was marked.”

Mark seemed ill at ease and Kieran regretted speaking, though the silence was kindly broken by Cristina.

“All men,” she said, pushing her hair back, tucking it behind a small round ear, “Perhaps. I could not comment. Does the Hunt often lose Hunters?” she looked eager and then quickly amended herself. “Please, do not tell me if you are not supposed to.” The princess had learned to hold her questions some, thought Kieran though at this point there wasn’t much to hide from her. One secret or many, what was the difference?

“Sometimes.” Kieran said “But rarely, and almost always because they try to desert and Gwyn has to kill them.”

Cristina looked hilariously alarmed. “Does that happen often?”

“As I said, rarely. But often enough. The oaths of the Hunt are binding. It is impressive that Gwyn released Mark so easily, even on my father’s orders, and little short of the orders of a monarch could break those ties. You should not be so surprised, princess, you Shadowhunters kill those who run from battle as well.” 

“We do.” Cristina admitted. “But there is also an option to leave in peace time, for those who wish.” 

“The Hunt is never at peace.” Kieran said. “We gather the fighting dead, what peace is there to have? There is a saying I remember when I was little, of the Wild Hunt.”

Cristina raised an eyebrow, then when Kieran did not move, sat up and leaned forward, eyes bright. “Can you tell me?” she said, almost a plea.

Kieran considered it, and Mark smiled at Cristina’s impatience, mild by most standards but impressive by hers. That was what decided it. A word of faerie or two in a Shadowhunter Hall could not hurt anyone.

“You will not understand it anyways.” he warned. “It is not in a language any Shadowhunter would know.”

“I know.” Mark said, smug and a little weary. Kieran ignored him. 

“Knowledge is knowledge’s own reward.” Cristina said, her accent growing a little stronger as if she had learned the phrase long ago. 

Kieran leaned in, felt Cristina start at his proximity just a little as he pressed his lips close to her ear and whispered the saying.

Her hair smelled like chemicals and strawberries and her ever present faint rose perfume. No wonder Mark liked her company so.

When he drew back he saw her lips moving, committing the pretty syllables she could not possibly parse meaning out of to memory.

“Thank you.” she said politely. “I know faeries guard their secrets well. I won’t betray this one.”

“It’s not that much of a secret.” Kieran said with amusement, then thought for a second about whether he wished to be remembered as a teller of deep truths or silly children’s sayings. “At least not within the courts. Who knows what havoc it could wreck outside of them?”

“It is a nursery rhyme.” Mark corrected. “Kieran is playing tricks.” Mark was smiling fondly, and Kieran only felt a little offended at having his ruse so quickly uncovered.

“Still, it is much appreciated.” Cristina said, every inch the prim Shadowhunter Mark had promised, whose place in a boy’s bed with a faerie at midnight was still a mystery to Kieran. Perhaps it was a mystery to Cristina too. 

“In the courts it is said that a gift well loved should be returned in kind.” Mark said, laying his head on his pillow. 

“I have no faerie sayings to give.” Cristina replied, half joking and half apologetic. 

“A kiss is always a fair currency.” Kieran told her idly, watching Mark close his eyes, as if he intended to go to sleep with the two of them there. 

He did not think much of the jest until he felt the weight on the bed shift and breath brush past his ear, like a careful caress, and turned to see Cristina had moved to sit closer to him, strong shoulders and the line of her neck prominent as she bent towards him. Her expression was thoughtful, but her eyes, she was was looking at him with something close to desire as she pressed her lips to his cheek for a heartbeat, perhaps two.

“And now we are even.” Cristina declared, the strange look not quite gone. Mark inhaled quickly, but Kieran couldn’t look back at him and see what he thought, he was still frozen, lip gloss residue on his face. 

“We are..” Kieran said finally, with more gravity than he intended. He smiled his most agreeable smile at Cristina, who had retreated back to the head board and seemed half in shock at her audacity herself. Mark was staring at both of them, wide eyed. 

Kisses had not meant half as much in faerie, but surrounded by the trappings of the Nephilim everyone seemed as heavy as an oath, as solid and precious and terribly fleeting as Cristina Rosales herself.

Kieran thought perhaps she tasted less of iron and more of strawberries, or that strange sour human taste that lingered around Mark at times. He thought perhaps he might like to learn.


End file.
